In order to increase the available interior space of a motorized or towable vehicle such as a motor home, trailer, or boat, these vehicles have been designed to include slide-out rooms. When the vehicle is in transit, the slide-out room is retracted and stored in the vehicle's interior with the exterior wall of the slide-out room approximately flush with the vehicle's exterior. As a result, there is typically adequate space within the vehicle's interior to accommodate users in transit and remain within the standard width limitations imposed upon a vehicle. When the vehicle is parked and leveled, the slide-out room is then slid outward through an opening formed in a sidewall of the vehicle thereby increasing the internal accommodations.
Typically, slide-out rooms include a floor section, a roof section, a first sidewall section, a second sidewall section, and a third sidewall section. In the retracted position, the roof section and the first and second sidewall section are concealed from exterior view, and the third sidewall section forms a portion of the vehicle's sidewall. At the same time, the floor section of the slide-out room typically rests above a floor section of a fixed room and may form a portion of the usable interior floor during vehicle transit. Similarly, the roof section of the slide-out room may define the interior ceiling of that part of the vehicle during transit. The proximal ends of the roof section, first sidewall section, and second sidewall section, include stop walls. As used herein, “proximal” refers to the portion towards the vehicle body and “distal” refers to the portion away from the vehicle body. The stop walls form an L-shaped configuration with the respective roof section, first sidewall section and second sidewall section. The stop walls engage the inner surface of a respective sidewall section of the fixed room when the slide-out room is fully extended, and thereby limit the travel of the slide-out room.
In the early phases of slide-out room design, the floor of the slide-out room would slide back and forth over the top of the interior vehicle floor. With these early designs, however, a step differential between the vehicle floor and the slide-out room floor existed, even when the slide-out room was fully extended. To some users, this type of design was inconvenient or unsightly.
As a result, some later slide-out rooms were designed so that the slide-out room floor became flush with the interior vehicle floor once the slide-out room was fully extended out from the vehicle. These designs became known as flush floor designs and examples can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,637,794, 6,598,354, and 5,577,351, each of which is hereby incorporated herein by reference.
Regardless of which type of slide-out rooms are used today, the underlying structure that is used in such slide-outs is typically heavy and bulky. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,758,918, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference, includes wide, heavy sliding members. The substantial width of these sliding members is primarily due to their inclusion of dual rollers on either side of a gear and gear rack. While providing adequate support for a slide-out room, these sliding members require more material to manufacture, increasing both their production cost and weight.
As a result, there is a continuing desire in the industry to find yet a better and more efficient way of achieving a slide-out configuration.